Hey everyone, a little while ago I posted a question about the parentage of Amy Fitch, wife of Ephraim Forbes, daughter of Hannah Leonard, and a ‘Captain Fitch’ whose first name is unknown. A book I read called “Ancestors and Descendants of Ephraim Forbes and Amy Fitch,” written in the 1950’s, said they thought he was a ship’s captain who died at sea shortly after Amy’s birth.
Having said that I’ve seen a few other accounts about who he was. In this article from Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine, a woman says she thinks (but wasn’t sure) that Amy Fitch’s father was Nathan Fitch (1748-1814) married to Amy Avery. But the lady says that Amy Fitch was born in/lived in Coventry Connecticut, even though we know Amy was born and raised in Preston Connecticut and that’s where her mother Hannah Leonard lived too. The other issue is that a book called “American Ancestry” says that the Nathan Fitch who married Amy Avery was from Guilderland New York, and was the son of Elisha Fitch of Coventry Connecticut.
Here is the American Ancestry link:
https://books.google.com/books?id=L25LAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=nathan+fitch+amy+avery&source=bl&ots=V--4dbysyO&sig=DY3ifRGQK2Nz0cMnKHpPTd9Ysso&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBWoVChMI_O3ah7ekxwIVxDY-Ch2sTwRP#v=onepage&q=nathan%20fitch%20amy%20avery&f=falseDaughters of the American Revolution Magazine link:
https://books.google.com/books?id=TOYQAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA151&lpg=PA151&dq=amy+fitch+nathaniel+fitch&source=bl&ots=w8ibO-TklM&sig=SBXEqMtBkMDWhSR0ZLsjYTmOreo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAmoVChMI_bq-u7mkxwIVjQOSCh2GWQEX#v=onepage&q=amy%20fitch%20nathaniel%20fitch&f=falseThis Ancestry.com genealogy says that Nathan was from Coventry Connecticut and his father was Ebenezer Fitch.
http://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/nathan-fitch_25497972So having said all that there is a diary by Jabez Fitch, from Preston Connecticut who mentions a lawsuit between Hannah Leonard and a man named Nathan Fitch in 1775. Jabez says that the court ordered Nathan to pay her 60 pounds which he said “I think was more than it was worth.” Is Nathan a common shortening of Nathaniel? He never says what the suit was over but could it have been a divorce? Maybe the idea that he was a sea captain who died at sea was a mistake later in family tradition later to explain why Nathan and Hannah were no longer married soon after Amy’s birth? Hannah was only eighteen when her daughter Amy was born so maybe getting married and then getting divorced so quick was some youthful mistake. I’ve read that Connecticut was the most liberal state for allowing divorce in pre-revolutionary America.
There was a Nathaniel Fitch living in Preston Connecticut who ended up serving as an officer in the American Revolution. I have seen a few genealogies on Ancestry.com saying Nathaniel Fitch and Thisbe Clark were the parents of Amy Fitch (we now know that it was Hannah Leonard as Hannah’s parents mention their granddaughter Amy Fitch in their wills), but Amy Fitch did end up naming one of her daughters Thisbe. Maybe she got along with her stepmother and decided to name a daughter after her? This lends I guess to the idea that Nathaniel Fitch was her father and he was a captain in the army rather than of a ship.
So to sum up my questions:
Does anyone know about the parentage/residence of the Nathan Fitch who married Amy Avery? Was he from Coventry Connecticut or was he from New York? Also does anyone know about his parentage, whether his father was actually Elisha or Ebeneezer Fitch? Also, was divorce a reasonably easy to obtain thing in America in the pre-revolutionary period?
